Filed under: Diaries, Making Music | Tags: (The Way We Used To) Have A Good Time, Anthony, Aris Christou, Art Of Piercing, Be The Devil, Chris Kissadjekian, Dimitris Karpouzas, End Is Near, Free Falling, George Mouzis, I Know You Well, I Wanna Be Your Dog, Jason, Let's Make It Count, Miles And Miles, Nick Sid, Nori Kapza, Not The Kindest Person, Perfect Mistake, Pregnant, San Quentin, SCA studio, Spyreas, Tasan, Thodoris Markou, Youth Hostel
Back to the studio since early September to finish off the new album. Spending half a day every single day at SCA studio mixing and recording bits and pieces forgotten and left since we stopped recording in August. Nick, Anthony, Jason and Spyreas in 2 or 3 people shifts. Our manager paying visits from time to time. It’s his house that we spend most of the rest of our time planning, brainstorming, chilling, drinking and -at some point- sleeping. His house is the place we always return after exhausting nights out trying to shake off the everyday studio work stress that sometimes I admit is more than overwhelming. It has become a sanctuary, not only for the band but for many other friends as well – we call it our Youth Hostel, mr George Mouzis is our host and Maria is the coffee dealer. (more…)
Filed under: Diaries, Making Music | Tags: Andreas Schwarz, Anthony, Aris Christou, Be The Devil, Dimitris Karpouzas, End Is Near, Faith No More, Fischerspooner, Galani, holidays, Ireon, Jason, live, Lyrics, Macia Studios, Mykonos, Pixel, Samos, SCA studio, Stranglers, Tipota
Mid August in Athens. In between short holidays on various greek islands. Trying to catch our breaths after months of constant effort.
In July, as planned we recorded vocals and guitars for the new album with Aris Christou at SCA studio. Not all 12 songs but definately 10 are ready to be mixed in September. Our new member Anthony, has added a distinctive twist to the sound and presence of the guitar in this album. Soon you will be able to find out for yourselves when the first single comes out. (more…)
Filed under: Diaries | Tags: Bianca, CityFM, Cyanna, free download, Guru, Jason, Just A Crash, Like Fire, live, Louie, Nick Sid, Panousis, Paranoid GF, Provis, Serafeim, Spyreas, Stelios Vlachakis, Sygkatikos, Teo Zefkilis, Wanna Be Your Dog, Zavara
It was a Sunday afternoon earlier this year, February 8th. We parked the cars with our gear outside the Guru Bar in Psyrri, downtown Athens. Five minutes later, our hosts for the gig and radio show broadcast Serafeim, Stelios (Provis) and Vasilis (Sigkatikos) arrived in their soccer outfits (tres sportif garcons) and helped us carry all the stuff up. The live stage of the club was set up on the third floor and the radio installation was set on a small attic right above the live stage floor. We spent the entire afternoon setting up everything, drinking anything we could find in the closed bar, eating junk food and discussing how we would fit our 14 lines into the 8-track console available for the live broadcast. The PA system of the club was no problem the only tricky part was the radio broadcast for CityFM 99,5.. but as you can hear in these 4 songs we have available for you to download, I think we did ok in the end after all! (more…)
Filed under: Diaries, Making Music | Tags: Anthony, Aris Christou, Cyanna, Dimitris Karpouzas, End Is Near, Jason, Macia Studios, MAD VMA, Miles And Miles, Nick Sid, Perfect Mistake, Pregnant, SCA studio, Shine, Spyreas
First week of recordings at SCA studio is over and here’s the story..
We decided to start the whole recording thing from the vocal tracks and we’ll probably complete it by the end of next week. After that Nick with Anthony will continue with the guitars at SCA studio and Jay and I move to the Macia studios for the drums (resident engineer Dimitris Karpouzas – the best last name out there). Nick and I found it a good idea to save time by recording guitars and drums in two different studios at the same time so that we’ll have more time for the final mix sessions with Aris Christou at SCA. So ‘Miles and Miles’, ‘Pregnant’, ‘Perfect Mistake’ and ‘End Is Near’ (more…)
Filed under: Diaries, Making Music | Tags: Anthony, Galani, MAD VMA, Pixel, Shine, Tipota
We got the award for Best Alternative Video for “Shine” at the MAD VMAs 2009.
We have a new face in the band. His name is Anthony and he plays the guitar.
There has been a minor delay on the final recordings for the new album. It’s all for the better I guess.
Dimitra Galani’s album “Pixel” is out and our version of her classic song “Tipota” is included.
I’m gonna be more specific about everything in a new blog soon..
Filed under: Diaries, Just A Crash | Tags: American Beauty, Cyanna, Electron, Fairytale of One, Faith No More, JAC, James, Just A Crash, Kevin Spacey, Lil Story, Midlife Crisis, On And On, Sam Mendes, Say Something, Shine, TV Nation
In the first part of this blog about the Just A Crash album facts and trivia, I mentioned a few films that were in our heads when we wrote the songs. One more song that is somehow related to a movie is the album’s second song, ‘Electron’. In the first few seconds of the track a female voice speaks the words “I wanna live a real life”. 
This is a line taken from American Beauty by Sam Mendes (leading actor Kevin Spacey’s line in particular), an incredible script with a strong statement about contemporary America and the Western -decaying- society in general. The soundtrack was magnificient too. Another fact about ‘Electron’ is that it was originally written in greek back in 2006. Maybe someday we will release that version too. Or maybe not.
Enough with the films. Some more non-film trivia about the songs of JAC: (more…)
Filed under: Diaries, Just A Crash | Tags: Dimitris Sylvestros, JAC, Just A Crash, Like Fire
‘Like Fire’, originally by The Dubrovniks, is the first song we have ever covered as a band. We have been playing it since 2002 and it has been a constant part of our live setlists for 7 years, usually the last song of the show. We recorded it in 2005 for the first time (for a promo cd we gave out in gigs back then) and it was the last song to be included in the ‘Just A Crash’ album last year.
Finally we chose this song to become the last single for JAC, thus completing the symmetry, with a strong taste video by Dimitris Sylvestros.
It’s the best way to prepare for our next album.
Filed under: Diaries, Just A Crash | Tags: Cyanna, Dimitris Sylvestros, George Mouzis, Intrepid Fox, Jason, Jason Megoulas, Johnny, Just A Crash, Like Fire, Louie, Morfe, Nick Sid, Spyreas, video shoot
Watch the “Like Fire” video on MySpace
Watch the “Like Fire” video on Facebook
Thursday, March 19th 2009. At 1 p.m we were at the bar of Intrepid Fox at Gazi, Athens waiting for director Dimitris Sylvestros’ crew to set up the lights and everything. By 8 p.m we had everything packed again and had the last beer of the day. We shot the video for “Like Fire” in less than 7 hours, with long long breaks of beer, tequila, and pool. After the 30th consequent playback of the song everybody had a crazy look in their eyes but what can you do… These are the photos of the day that our manager mister George Mouzis took while running around making sure everything’s in place. A fun day making the video for the last single out of JAC..
A glorius sunny day outside and we were shooting pool with Ms Victoria, our hostess for the day. She kicked my ass. (more…)
Filed under: Diaries, Just A Crash | Tags: AC/DC, Better Not, Chasing Amy, concept, crash, Cyanna, Done Be, Fear and Loathing, Highway Exit, Hunter Thompson, influences, JAC, Just A Crash, Kevin Smith, Paul Haggis, Terry Gilliam, The Road to Perdition, trivia
People have been asking about the films that inspired the Just A Crash album, and I guess we never tried to hide the fact that we love the cinematic way of approaching a story, as well as drawing inspiration from scenes or just the feel of a film to write a song.
So since this blog is supposed to be the diary of Cyanna, I guess that listing some further facts about this album -where some ideas came from, the sources etc- would be an interesting article -or a series of articles-, especially for those wondering what this band’s actual influences are. After all it’s almost a year now since the album’s official release, so here goes..
It’s no secret that the basic concept of the album was conceived during a talk we had about “Crash“, the 2004 film written and directed by Paul Haggis. Self-absorbed characters, prejudice, stereotypes, guilt and the hell of facing one’s inner self, the fact that everyone and everything is connected with that invisible substance of randomness. The title of the album itself is actually not about the romantic sense of the word ‘crash’, but rather the urge of humans to collide, violently enough to feel something and exit, even for a moment, that numbness of modern life in a big city, in a bigger world. ‘Done Be’, the opening track of the album (as well as the hidden closing track), is a story, a sequence of moments, thoughts and memories of a character trapped in such a scenario.
Another film that proved a great (more…)
